11 Greatest Horror Games You've Never Played

Sure, most of us have played a horror game or two. But for every big-budget bruiser like Silent Hill, there are dozens of scary games that go unnoticed. Time to change that. We slipped under the floorboards to catch these forgotten scares - the 11 Greatest Horror Games You've Never Played.

11

Friday the 13th

NES

In an era where most games were kid-friendly affairs, the makers of the gory Friday the 13th series licensed their mature-audiences title out into an NES game, and the results were strangely effective in eliciting fear from its players. Even now, Friday the 13th remains one of the more effectively scary games out there, which is why it just had to be included on this list.

10

Lone Survivor

PC, PS3

Lone Survivor makes use of many tropes that have helped survival horror become the beloved genre it is today — things like ever-present danger, dwindling supplies, and the threat of the unknown. This 16-bit style title may seem like something from two decades ago, but its brilliance is definitely ahead of its time.

9

Alone in the Dark

PC

As one of the earliest survival horror games to hit the scene, Alone in the Dark's aesthetics haven't exactly aged gracefully, but there's still an undeniable effectiveness to the terror lurking in every corner of this Lovecraftian scarefest.

8

Home

PC

Home may technically qualify as a video game, but in spirit it's more akin to a Choose Your Own Adventure, complete with branching story elements and a narrative the player takes an active part in constructing... which makes the horror that much more disturbing.

7

Yume Nikki

PC

Yume Nikki. Strange. Minimalist. Free. If you like your horror to be more existential than in-your-face, this bizarrely brilliant game is definitely for you.

6

The Path

PC

Another art-piece-turned game, The Path is one of the few games that punishes the player for exploring, i.e. straying from the path. The more you stray, the more you'll discover. And the more it'll cost you.

5

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

PC

Based on Harlan Ellison's classic sci-fi short story of the same name, this post-apocalyptic point-and-click tasks you with surviving the malicious machinations of a bored supercomputer who, after having destroyed the world, got bored and took to torturing the scattered remnants of humanity.

4

Illbleed

Dreamcast

This ill-fated (and ill-named) Dreamcast title pits you as the genre-savvy hero of a horror story gone awry. Insane lumberjacks, robots disguised as humans disguised as robots, and Zodick the Hedgehog are but a few of the freaky sights you'll find in this pulse-pounder.

3

Sweet Home

Famicom

Sweet Home, a role-playing game for the original Famicom, comes jam-packed with all kinds of scary crap made all the more scary by the 8-bit system's limitations. Thanks to some unsanctioned translations, many fans have given this forgotten title new life by rendering it readable for Western audiences.

2

Clock Tower

SNES, PC, Playstation

Before there was Slenderman, there was Scissor Man, whose name varies from sequel to sequel, but whose methods of terror remain the same: dude carries around a huge-ass pair of scissors and wants to take a little off the top... of your body.

1

System Shock 2

PC

Remember how friggin' chilling some parts of the first Bioshock were? As the direct progenitor to Bioshock, System Shock 2 contains much of what made that title such a break-out hit; interesting combat and character customization, thoughtful writing, and a pervasive sense of dread. All this adds up to being our #1 pick in our list of 11 Greatest Horror Games You've Never Played.